Tent pitch has union in flap over workers' housing

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Nearly a century has passed since NSW shearers and crop pickers earned the legal right to live in decent accommodation while working on farms.

But if the NSW Government has its way, tents may take the place of sheds and barracks.

The proposal forms part of a plan to repeal the Rural Workers Accommodation Act, which the Government insists has been imposed on it by the National Competition Council's push for industry competition.

The Government has already moved to deregulate several sectors, including pharmacies, liquor and optometry, because of competition council demands.

But a letter from the competition body - and its own report into the legislation - contradicts this and concludes there is no need to repeal the legislation.

"The act does not act to restrict competition in the agricultural industry or by crowding out investment in the accommodation industry," the report says.

The legislation - and the use of tents for rural workers - had its origins nearly 100 years ago when boundary riders took their horses to distant areas of huge properties to check on and maintain fences, often camping out.

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Changes to the legislation in the 1960s removed the provisions allowing tents because larger distances could be covered by four-wheel-drives.

The state president of the Australian Workers Union, Mick Madden, said the State Government had buckled to the farmers' lobby.

"It's the farmers that want to put people back in tents, and it seems the minister agrees with them," he said.

"We are talking about turning the clock back 100 years."

WorkCover NSW had suggested that if tents were good enough for army personnel, they should be good enough for farm workers, he said. "But the only time the military use tents is when they are in a war zone."

The union accused the Government of hiding behind the competition council and market deregulation requirements every time it adopted politically sensitive policies such as privatisation.

But according to the office of the Special Minister of State, John Della Bosca, the competition council wanted NSW to get rid of legislation it regarded as too prescriptive, including regulations about how big windows in dining rooms must be or how high above the ground accommodation must be built.